Update: Respawn were listening. To address the issue of the season 7 battle pass progression being too slow, the amount of experience points required for each star has been halved from 10,000 xp to 5,000 xp as of today. Additionally, as explained on Twitter, "starting next week, your Weekly Challenges will take much less time to complete." The studio also explained the context behind the original decision.
Some context: Two goals for the Battle Pass in Season 7 were...1) Make it engaging for the entire length of the season2) Encourage you to try out new Legends and playstylesWe think we missed the mark with the first iteration, so hopefully these changes help out!November 6, 2020
Original story: Electronic Arts made some changes to the Apex Legends battle pass for season 7, including an overhaul of challenges aimed at simplifying the system. Recurring weekly challenges have been rolled into "revamped" dailies, unique weekly challenges will be available to complete throughout the entire season, and instead of awarding points, completing a challenge will get you 1-5 stars, depending on the difficulty. Ten stars are required to earn a battle pass level.
The idea, EA said, is to make battle pass progression "more streamlined and rewarding," and to make it easier to track your progress. It seems reasonable at first glance: "I need four more stars for a level and this challenge is worth four stars" is easier to math out in your head than raw XP numbers, after all. But based on the reaction to the pass in the Apex Legends subreddit it's not working out quite as planned.
The problem is that under the new system, battle pass progression is much slower than in previous seasons. Redditor GrubbyLilPaws summed it up in a one-line post:
Redditor Sp00kyGamer dug down into the numbers in more detail, saying that players who play every day for the next 88 days, and complete every daily challenge each day, will earn 70 battle pass levels, while weekly challenges are estimated to be worth 50 more.
"Putting the numbers together it doesn't LOOK that bad," they wrote. "But compared to the gain of regular XP levels and how fast that could be gained in the previous battle pass systems, the old system was a lot easier on the player if they missed a bunch of daily challenges, as it was WAY easier to gain levels via XP, and you could get 2 free levels just from completing 10 daily missions a week."
I can't vouch for the math, but the gist of it is that "this new system is WAY too strict on casual players, and is actually forcing them to play almost every day of the season if they want to reach level 110," and there seems to be widespread agreement on that point.
- "I played for the past three hours, got top 5 a few times and pulled off a win with half a dozen kills. And I haven't progressed a SINGLE level in the battle pass." - thebadsociologist
- "It 'pays for itself' if you ignore the fact that it is forcing you to grind a massive amount if you want to finish it. You literally have to get 100% of your dailies plus almost all of your weeklies in order to get 110." - DeliciousWaifood
- "Been playing the last three hours and I haven't leveled up. How the heck am I supposed to do it in 88 days. I only casually play, and I do not have time to put hours and hours in the game everyday." - amblivion
- "Yeah this is season 1 levels of bad. I'm honestly kind of shocked at how much of a slog it would be to get 100 this time around. I say would be, because for the first time ever, I'm skipping the BP without even thinking about it." - ImHully
- "All I really wanted was that octane skin but how the FUCK am I supposed to get to lvl 50!?" - TheVoicesSayHi
Many posters are saying they won't purchase the new battle pass unless EA does something to improve the pace of progression. I wouldn't be surprised if that happens: Apex Legends Season 7 just got underway, and given the number of changes made to the battle pass, the need for some post-launch tuning is hardly a surprise. Apex also recently released on Steam, so this system will be a lot of new players' first introduction to the game.
I've reached out to EA to inquire about that possibility and will update if I receive a reply. While we wait for that, you can contribute "thoughts, suggestions, and ideas" to a rapidly-growing season 7 battle pass feedback thread on Reddit.
